There are many factors which contribute to a successful marketing campaign. To successfully market a product, a producer or distributor (hereinafter referred to as a “company”) should ideally have an advantage over its competitors. This advantage may be an improved or unique product (or service). The company should also be able to advertise the product (or service) in a manner that stresses the advantages that the product (or service) provides. Furthermore, a company should decide ahead of time which audience(s) to target, and thus design advertisements to address the specific needs of that group. A company should carry good service relationships with customers. Finally, a marketing campaign of a particular company should reach potential consumers before that of another company.
Even with all these prerequisites, a company often fails to produce successful marketing campaigns. It is believed that this is at least in part because companies conventionally cannot accurately predict how a potential consumer will perceive an advertisement. A company may try to appeal to the sense of adventure in a potential consumer, for example, by portraying specific images or colors in the advertisement. Yet, if the potential consumer is not an “adventurous type”, then the efforts on the part of the company have been essentially worthless. A potential consumer might take one quick look at an advertisement and decide, before any further inquiry, that he or she does not wish to purchase the product (or service). Thus, if an advertisement for the product (or service) does not initially appeal to a potential consumer, then typically no sale will be made, regardless of the benefit the consumer might derive from the product (or service), the high quality of the product (or service), or the fact that the advertisement reached the potential consumer before that of another company.
The problem of effective marketing also exists on the Internet. Firstly, Internet “surfers” are typically attracted mostly by the price of a product, while other advantages come secondarily. Furthermore, while in regular marketing, it is possible to direct marketing according to some of the needs of the particular consumer (e.g., based on demographic data, specified interests, etc. . . . it is typically not possible to do this on standard Internet sites (because a business typically cannot know which individuals are visiting their site). Thus, all consumers typically view identical advertisements when they visit the same Web page.
Among those benefits and improvements that have been disclosed, other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying FIGURE. The FIGURE constitutes a part of this specification and includes illustrative embodiments of the present invention and illustrates various objects and features thereof.